


Dracula's Bride

by LadyAntoinette



Category: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Dracula (TV 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Character Turned Into Vampire, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Forced Relationship, M/M, Murder, Power Imbalance, Psychological Torture, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:14:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22910818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAntoinette/pseuds/LadyAntoinette
Summary: All Jonathan wanted to do was get into the castle, collect the money for the property and go home, back to his wife, to his happy life, but luck was not on his side. In fact...it didn't even exist. He'd find out soon enough. Dracula would force him to...soon enough.
Relationships: Dracula/Jonathan Harker, Jonathan Harker & Mina Harker
Comments: 18
Kudos: 166





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my fic! I watched all three episodes of Dracula and have to say it's one of the best acted show's I've seen so far and the relationship between Jonathan and Dracula instantly captured my attention.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan arrives to his location.

Translyvania.

Of all the places Jonathan had to go, this was probably the worst. There was nothing here. Just massive forests filled with towering trees and animals Jonathan had no intention of ever meeting.

Translyvania.

A dark sky covered in even darker cloud's. Wind blowing his coat and hat in ways that shouldn't even be possible. An eerie silence that seemed to stretch for miles and miles. If the horse's just so happened to stop and the sound of their hooves ceased Jonathan thought he just might loose his mind.

Translyvania.

Mina had been grief stricken to see him leave so soon, especially after all the plans they'd made. In just a month the two star crossed lover's were supposed to be getting married. The preparations were a mess. Mina's family and Jonathan's family in a constant battle for control of the venue. Jonathan missed his fiancee already. Her beautiful eyes and luxurious hair. Her small smiles and light kisses to his cheek. He hoped this trip would go by fast. He was dying to see her once again.

Translyvania.

Who could possibly live all the way out here? It was madness. That someone could choose to live in the middle of nowhere, with not even a few neighbor's to keep company with. Jonathan felt bad for whoever it was. They must be extremely lonely and down on their luck to choose to exist in such a decrepit place.

//

The carriage reached a small rock filled clearing. The driver stopped the horse's and Jonathan leaned his head out of the window to address him.

"The location is all the way down the road" he said pointing. "You have to keep going."

The look the driver gave him was one of mirth. He shook his head once and tilted his hat down, casting the upper half of his face in shadow.

"This ride ends here" he stated. He dropped down from the top of the carriage and opened the door. "We driver's don't follow the whole road down. He'll send another carriage to take you up. It should be here any minute."

He? Who was he? It must've been his client. Jonathan clutched his bag's tighter in his hand and stepped out into the chill air. He didn't know who this _he_ was. The man he did business with hadn't told him the client's name. Only that Jonathan was to secure a payment for the manor and return.

The driver shut the door behind him. Jonathan payed the man and just as the last coin fell into his open palm an all black carriage burst forth from the oppressive fog.

His original driver looked upon it for a short moment and then hurriedly returned to the carriage and his seat.

"This is where I leave you" he said tersely. "Good luck."

Luck for what?

Jonathan raised his hand to bid the man farewell but he had already brought the horse's to a fast trot.

"See...you..."

The first carriage dissapeared back the way he'd come and for some reason he had the sudden urge to spring down the already traveled road and call it back. There was something about this place that made the hair's stand rigid on the back of his neck. Something wasn't right here. He could feel it.

Up above the sky was somehow even darker than it'd been before and the cloud's promised a torrential downpour. Jonathan turned his attention to the waiting carriage. He picked up his luggage and stepped forward.

"Are you here to take me to the manor?" He called.

Draped all over in black the driver sat in silence and didn't say a word. The horse's in front were as black as night. They pounded their hooves against the ground in what could possibly be translated as frustration. Jonathan didn't know. He wasn't a horse expert.

"Well then" he said lowly. "I guess this is it."

He opened the door for himself and climbed inside. The instant he shut the door behind himself the carriage jolted forward and sped off down the darkened path, hell-bent and Jonathan had the silliest thought in his head that they just might be going to hell. 

He settled himself with some difficulty and then turned his attention to the view outside the window. The trees and rocks were one and the same. A solid blur of green and grey and brown that passed by his eyes in a flash.

Jonathan had never know a carriage to travel so swiftly. It seemed that they were moving faster than the wind itself, though Jonathan knew that to be impossible.

//

The Manor-the _Castle_ , was massive. A huge, solid mass of brick and mortar that would have deterred even the strongest, bravest men from daring to go inside. Covered sparsely in various low burning lanterns It had to had to have risen a hundred feet in the air. Jonathan wondered to himself what the view was like from the top. He hoped to see it before he began his journey home.

Curious, he stretched his neck out to see the very top of it and his hat fell off in the process.

He turned to thank the driver for the ride but to his suprise and amazement the horse and carriage was already gone.

He muttured to himself, "Some driver" and picked up his luggage.

The front doors he found, were closed, and when he knocked upon them, sent spine tingling whines and echoes out in every direction.

After several minutes of waiting Jonathan called out in the hopes that someone, it's owner preferably, would hear him.

"Hello!"

His voice traveled out into the mountains and back. The silence afterwards was defeaning.

Jonathan tried again. "Hello!"

The heavy sound of wings beating the air caused him to jump and turn around. A single bat floated out from one of the castles various nooks and crannies. It floated past him and he followed it with his eyes. He hadn't seen a bat in ages. Probably since he was a child, when one random one had surprised him in his grandpa's barn.

Suddenly, there was a loud rushing of wind and in the timespan of no more than five seconds Jonathan was surrounded on all sides by hundreds and hundreds of bats.

He dropped his suitcases.

Screaming he swung his body around every which way and waved his hands around to keep them away.

"Get off! Get _off_! Go away!"

He dropped down onto the ground and threw his hands over his head. For a minute they swarmed, a wriggling black mass of absurd proportions and then...they were gone.

Jonathan opened his eyes one after the other. Everything was quiet. Shaking, he stood up and brushed himself off. He picked his hat up where it'd landed a few feet away.

"Some castle" he muttured. "They don't pay me enough for this. Mina will be glad to hear it. She'll probably laugh."

He laughed out loud himself at the thought. His heart was pounding. Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance. He turned to try and knock on the door again and took an involuntary step backwards at what he saw.

The door was open.


	2. The Client

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan meets his client.

For a long moment Jonathan stared at the two doors in somewhat of a shock. When had they opened? Had they been open the whole time?

No. They couldn't have been. He'd come to them straight upon arrival and they'd been closed. He'd seen it. He'd seen it with his own two eye's.

"Hello?"

No response.

Clutching his bag tightly in one hand he peeked his head through the door and then pushed his whole body through it shutting it carefully behind himself. It was rude to enter someone's house uninvited, Jonathan knew this. But no one was answering and the conditions outside were growing to be quite horrendous so this was his only option, unless his client wanted him to die.

"Hello?"

Once again, no response.

Jonathan shuffled deeper and deeper into the castle, taking in the magnificent sight of it like a baby would a shimmering diamond.

Everything within the castle seemed to be made out of pure gold. The paintings and walls and bannisters sparkled brilliantly in the light of the torches. Endless staircases. Timeless decorum and ingenious architecture, the castle was fit for no less than a king.

"A king who can make a payment" Jonathan muttured.

He continued walking until he reached a large dining room of some sort. All the way at the end of the long, decorative table a fire was burning in the hearth. Long glances across the wide, open expanse led Jonathan's eye's to behold the sight of the delicious looking meal resting in the middle of it. His stomach growled and he was suddenly reminded of his arduous journey to get there.

His suitcase's went down on the north end of the table and he made his way over to the food and drink. He took fleeting glances at his surroundings every know and again to be sure of the fact that he was trully by himself.

The wine was so good Jonathan almost choked on it. It tasted absurdly expensive and based on the conditions of this gorgeous castle, It probably was.

"Do you like it?"

Jonathan dropped his glass. It shattered on the floor and he backed away from the hundreds of pieces. Up above on the staircase there stood a man where there hadn't been one just seconds before.

Old and decrepit and utturely disgusting looking it amazed Jonathan that this man could still stand on his feet. He looked to be a breath from withering away.

"P-please excuse me" Jonathan stammered and removed his hat. "I-I- had absolutely no intentions whatsoever of intruding upon your home. It was just that-um...the door was open and you weren't answering and the weather was getting to be God awful so I-um... I let myself in."

"Take care" the old man said. He bent over and coughed extending his arm. "You are my guest. My home is yours. Excuse me...for being...so very slow in movement." His lips twisted up into a sickly variation of a smirk. "Old age doesn't seem to be treating me well."

Jonathan agreed.

The old man slowly made his way down the stairs and up to Jonathan's person. He turned his head up to look at him and Jonathan could see the intricate details of the wrinkles in his face.

He was wearing a red and black silk robe. Long, whispy strand's of white hair fell down to his shoulders. His nose was spot ridden and bent and so was the rest of his face, his features twisted at odd, unexplainable angle's.

He hunched down on his cane as though there was something heavy on his back and when he smiled the young lawyer could see his teeth, yellow and crooked and rotting away from the inside out.

"Make me your aquaintance."

The man's eyes held a terrible deepness to them that Jonathan couldn't explain. As if he'd seen a hundred wars or even a thousand.

Jonathan stood up straight and bounced once on the balls of his feet.

"My name is Jonathan" he said. "Jonathan Harker. I-Im a lawyer, from Lannester Scott's. Here to discuss the terms for the purchase of a property in England."

"Ah yes" the other man said. "Lannester Scott's. I saw that very place in my dreams once. A lovely setting. Nothing but blue sky's and sunshine for miles, though, sadly, I'd have to admit it bores me so."

He looked down at the shattered glass on the floor.

"My sincerest apologies for the glass" Jonathan said. Using one hand the old man picked up the bottle of wine and poured it into a new glass.

"Here" he said gesturing. "Have another."

"Oh no. No thankyou. I-I-couldn't. I wouldn't want to break another."

The man shrugged. "Such a pity. I myself am a very _strong_ believer that breaking thing's is oh so _fun_."

Jonathan forced a smile.

The man bade him sit down at the table and eat, all the while sitting stiffly on the opposite end and not touching anything himself.

"You don't want to eat?" The lawyer asked.

The man shook his head. "Oh no, don't mind me I'm not hungry."

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

Jonathan finished his meal and as it was so very late in the night, the old man insisted upon showing him to his room upstairs.

"Pardon me" the old man said. "If my English isn't very good. It's been a while for me though I'm sure you could teach me?"

Jonathan chuckled. "Oh I'd love to but I'm afraid I'm no teacher."

"Oh but I'm a willing student."

Jonathan's head swam with worry. He hoped he wouldn't be staying here for a long time. He had to get back home to Mina.

The stairs were a hell of their own. There were so very many that it seemed they'd never reach the top, but they didn't even get to the top, the old man stopped them what looked to be about halfway up and the strange part was that he wasn't even the slightest bit winded, having to deal with both old age and a hunchback while Jonathan on the other hand felt near to fainting. What was it that gave the older man such unparalleled strength?

"Um...about how long do you think this process should take?" He asked.

The elderly man pushed the key into the lock and swung the door open. It creaked quietly.

"Oh not long" he assured him. "Not long at all. Maybe a day...or two. Three at the most. I'm sure you have other...more important matters to attend to, hm?"

"Yes actually" Jonathan said smiling. "I do." He stood up straight and his hair almost lifted with his pride. "In one month I'm set to be married."

"Dearest Johnny, really? Why that's fantastic."

Jonathan's smile fell. Johnny. The man had called him Johnny. Nobody called him that. Nobody except Mina.

"Is there a problem?" The old man asked.

"Uh, Johnny" Jonathan said. "You called me Johnny. Only my fiancee call's me that."

"Curious. That's quite the coincidence."

How was it a coincidence? Jonathan opened his suitcase and began riffling through it to find some clothes to sleep in when the man caught his attention once again.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Forgive me, please, for you won't be seeing me again until tomorrow night. I'm afraid the sun does horror's to my skin." He placed his hand on the doorknob and looked back. There was a strange glint in his eyes and he seemed as though he were anticipating something though what it was exactly Jonathan couldn't say.

"And please, don't be afraid to have a look around the castle. As I said before my home is yours."

Jonathan stopped his rustling and turned. "One question, before I forget?"

"Of course."

"My apologies if-if it's to forward but I...haven't gotten your name."

"Oh. Pardon my manners, Johnny. Its Dracula" the old man said thunder rumbling in the distance. "Count Dracula."


	3. Search

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan explores the castle.

Jonathan woke up in the middle of the night to thunder and lightning. So the torrential downpour he'd predicted had come. 

The sky cracked in the distance and he rubbed carelessly at the lower part of his neck. He was sweating profusely and was...thirsty, so very thirsty, but there was no water and he feared that leaving his room would get him lost. 

He turned over stiffly and closed his eyes to maybe try and get some more sleep but a scratching at the window made him re-open them.

He sat up slowly and called out to the darkness. 

"Hello?" 

The scratching stopped. 

Jonathan shook his head and and lie back down. 

"This is madness" He said whispering. I'm just tired."

He closed his eyes and the instant he did so the scratching sound returned, louder this time, more insistent. _Someone_ wanted to be heard and they weren't leaving until they were. 

Jonathan pressed his hands to his ears and squeezed his eyes tight and then his window blew open and all hell broke loose upon his room. 

He jumped up and ran to it with unmeasured quickness. The lock on top of it looked like quite the formidable opponent and yet it'd blown all the way open to the point where it'd actually collided with the outside wall. The noise of the storm seemed to be directly within his ears. He stuck his head out and squinted through the steady rain. 

Up above there was something moving. A person. It was a person!

"Hey!"

Jonathan scrambled to get a better look, going so far as to hang his body halfway out into the elements, knowing good and damn well that one little slip up would send him plummeting to the shadowy depths below. And then there'd be no wedding, only a funeral, _if_ the old man ever found his body. 

"Hey, you up there! Who are you?! _Hey_!" 

The figure dissapeared into one of the upstairs windows right above Jonathan's own and pulled his head back in closing his own with a loud bang and standing there in his nightshirt and briefs, shaking and half soaked. 

"Oh my God" he announced only to run his hand through his wet brown hair and repeat himself a few seconds later. "Oh my God."

Was he insane? Was he _insane_? Who was that? There was no way he'd imagined that, it was to real. He hurried to riffle through his belongings. He needed to get out of this room. He needed to find Dracula.

He got halfway across the room before he stopped. What the hell was he thinking? What kind of idiot went banana's over a window accidentally blowing open during a storm? Why, the old man would think him mad. A window...blowing open...right. That was what'd happened. It was just a trick. The human figure was just a trick caused by the lanterns and his lack of a decent sleep. Right?

Right. It was just a trick. 

And besides. What would Dracula do? The man looked near to death. Jonathan was better off to remain alone than to go and retrieve him. He was sure of it. 

He forced himself to get back into bed and drew the heavy embroidered cover's back upon himself. 

"It's nothing. It's nothing. It's just the wind. Quit fretting so much. If poor Mina was here she'd loose her head."

I'll write her a letter tomorrow, he thought. That will raise my spirits. 

And it did. The thought comforted him but not for long. He closed his eyes and once more fell prey to a fitful bout of slumber, his hand occasionally rubbing at the lower part of his neck.

//

When Jonathan woke up in the morning, of course, as mentioned, Dracula was nowhere to be found. 

The young lawyer lay in bed for quite the while. For the first time in forever it seemed that his energy was failing him. 

"Morning sickness" he said. "It must be morning sickness."

He did get up eventually, eating and dressing and organizing the proper materials for his letter to Mina. After he did so he took Dracula up on his offer to tour the castle all on his own. 

What else could have possibly been life's biggest mistake besides the absolutely ridiculous achitecture that was Dracula's Mannor.

Jonathan took the stairs. Once. Twice. Three times. Though it seemed that no matter how hard he tried he could never reach the top. 

The first time he went up it seemed as though he'd gone up twice. He was searching for the window from the night before, still paranoid and eager to find out what exactly his first night's experience had been. 

It turns out though that the castle was a maze of dangerous proportions. Unescapable and untraversable by anyone except maybe...Dracula. The upstairs was the downstairs and the downstairs was the upstairs. The beautiful rays of sunshine and coming in through the windows gave him momentary periods of hope which quickly made way for paranoia. 

First, Jonathan walked, and then he ran and then, when he got his strength back, ran again. He was going up several flights of stairs, he knew this, and yet he kept reaching the same door, that led him to the same hallway which gave him the same three options which took him back downstairs and to the dining room where he'd first began. 

His room, the door with the brass handle and the dining room were the only places he could get to. 

It seemed the window he'd seen the night before did not exist, but he knew it did. He'd seen it clearly. The castle had more floor's than this as told by it's astounding hieght. 

He went up the steps once and reached the door with the brass handle. Turning around he went back down the stairs and then travelled upwards once again, two flights this time instead of one. 

Same door wirh the brass handle. 

Was this a joke? 

"Is this a joke?" he said aloud. It had to be. There was no way that this wasn't intentional. There was no way you went up multiple flight's of stairs and ended up at the same door every time. 

He sat down on one of the steps and heaved a heavy sigh, wiping a thin sheen of sweat off his brow. Well, Dracula wasn't available, so the only solution was to find a map. A map that would lead him to whatever place the castle was designed to keep him from finding. 

The manor was old. Very old. Jonathan was a lawyer though, and he'd been through enough properties in his twenty eight year's of life to know that no matter how old a property was, if it was this big, it always had a map of the premises. And maybe it was hidden or locked away somewhere...but all you had to do was be determined enough to go out and find it .

He spent an hour looking, searching. The hour passed by quickly. He stayed out and searched for another hour, and then another, and then another and then another. He'd searched the three doors and the bannister and the dining room. By now both his shirt and his body were covered in sweat. His hair was in a disarray but he wasn't giving up. Not yet. 

"Where is it?" He said. "Where is it?" 

He retraced his steps and ended up back in the hallway with the three doors. Down the third door's corridor was a painting. It was of a woman, with dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes, dressed regally in beautiful garments. She looked like Jonathan in female form but who she was exactly Jonathan had no better chance of guessing than any other random visitor that just so happened to be inclined. 

"This must be it" he whispered. "This has to be it." Placing both hands on either side of the golden frame he lifted it carefully and took it right off the wall, placing it down onto the floor beside him. And inside, dust ridden and bundled and folded into several stacks of varying sizes...was not one map but several pieces of the whole.

"There is a God."

The map's he took and spread out on the table back in his room. There were several wide open passage ways and room's he found of which he couldn't believe he'd originally missed, that was just how obvious they turned out to be.

The lower levels of the castle were the places he decided to explore first while he still had some daylight left. To be safe he carried the piece of the map he was following with him just in case. Lord knows what he'd do if he got stuck in yet another endless staircase and couldn't find his way out. 

//

Jonathan struck a match and lit up the lantern in his hand. He put the match out and tossed it somewhere behind him, picking up the map and holding it up to the light to see it's more intricate features. 

Turn's out it didn't really matter if it was daytime or not. The corridors were so far down that they were pitch black regardless. 

Markings on the wall stole Jonathan's attention every now and again. They were strange markings, scratch marks made with nails instead of drawings or symbols. All that led into the corridors and not out. 

Jonathan's heart was racing. Whatever he'd find down here wouldn't be good. He wondered if Dracula knew about it. He had to. He seemed old enough to have figured it out.

The walls were dry and narrow. All around him was the earthly smell of soil. Jonathan placed his hand upon the wall to his left and kept it there for the contact. It kept him feeling somewhat sane because at this point he could say for sure that his sanity was beginning to crumble.

He'd only been here for a night. 

He came out of the smaller passage suddenly and stepped into a wide one. A very wide one, a room actually, filled to bursting with giant...boxes.

"Boxes?" 

Jonathan's heart fell. He made his way through the tall stacks, his fingers lightly tracing the deep mahogany, blue eyes flooded with an emotion he couldn't bring himself to describe. He was...dissapointed, to say the least. He'd done all this walking and running and searching for hour's upon hour's upon hour's just to find what was probably just the old man's extensive furniture collection though Jonathan had no idea what soil had to do with it. 

A crowbar lying on top of one of the boxes caught Jonathan's attention. He picked it up and tested it's weight in his hand. 

He eyed one of the lowest boxes and shrugged. Might as well see what all the rave was about this furniture. Make his trip somewhat worthwhile, it must've been antique.

With some difficulty he pried the lid open and peeled the wood back. The crowbar fell from his hands and the resounding clang echoed off the surrounding walls.

Jonathan's face went white as a sheet. "My God."

A corpse. He was looking at a corpse. Lying face up in what looked to be brown soil, the skeletal face of a long dead woman stared back at him and then, it... _moved_.

The head came up and the torso followed. Jonathan's fight or flight kicked in. He flew back in horror and hit his head on one of the other boxes. The corpse lifted the lid the rest of the way and began stepping out, all withering bones and tattered clothing, long strands of dark hair that had to have been growing for hundreds of year's...or more. 

Jonathan scrambled backwards and away and the lid on the box next to his shoulder sprung forth. 

He screamed. 

All around him was the forever sickening sound of splintering wood. The corpses appeared from no where, faces crumbling to dust, dry groans of agony that begged and pleaded for him to help. 

"Jonathan. Jonathan. _Jonathan_."

They called his name. Christ's sake they were calling his name. 

"Get off!" He screamed. " _Get_ _off_!" 

He pushed the nearest one with both hands who toppled over. Rising quickly to his feet he snatched the lantern where he'd left it sitting idle and took off at sprint. In his panic he took the wrong passage but he didn't care. He didn't care where he was going. He just had to get away.

His feet beat against the ground. He swung the lantern every which way as he fought to see the path ahead of him

The corpses were fast. Very fast. He could hear them behind him now, gaining quickly. They were sprinting too. How could they sprint? What ungodly evil had allowed them this action, this movement?

"Help me! Help me! Someone- _please_! Help me!" 

The passages fell away before him but, much like the stairs, seemed never ending. 

Finally Jonathan burst into a large mosoleum of some sort. A large stone coffin sat in the middle of which the lid was slightly ajar. Jonathan ran around it and tripped, right in front of the golden plaque. 

_Dracula_.

An arm burst forth and grabbed him. He snatched his arm away and fell down again though he was up again before he knew it. 

"Help! Help me!" 

The corpse's had all caught up to him. They pulled at his arms and his legs and his hair.

He screamed and screamed and screamed some more. He dropped the lantern and it shattered. Plunged into darkness he succumbed to the feeling of seemingly a hundred hand's tearing at his hair and clothes. 

He was dead and sorry. Sorry for snooping around in a place he didn't belong. But who would care now? Who would come for his body? Who knew where he was besides his employer...and Dracula?

No one.


	4. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan recalls the event's of the lower corridors. Dracula gains a new appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be updating probably once in the night and once I the afternoon, depending so...stay tuned!! Also, don't forget to comment, I love to hear your feedback!

Jonathan came to screaming at the top of his lungs like a man gone mad. 

"Get off, get off of me! Please! Get _off_!" 

A firm hand against his arm settled him. "Johnny, _Johnny_. There you are. I thought we'd lost you."

A soothing Danish accent greeted him from above. An angel. It had to be an angel. Only angel's could sound as sweet.

Jonathan lifted his head and blinked. He was...alright. Seated at the dining room table he had his legs braced against one another under the wood and his hands squeezed tightly into fists. 

The cutlery on the table sparkled. Behind him the fire place crackled and hissed with momentary bouts of wayward flame's. But the heat felt nice upon his back. 

"Wha-what? I-I don't understand. I was downstairs, i-in the corridors and, and there were boxes and, and the map-"

"I found you downstairs" the man purred. "Asleep on the floor. Perhaps it was the wine, though I thought you didnt really drink."

"I barely drank. I dropped the glass after my first sip. You were there, you saw it. You saw...me. I-I know what I saw."

"Do you Johnny? As I stand here before you you don't look so sure."

He set his glass down and a drop of the liquid inside dripped down the side of it and onto the tablecloth. 

Maybe it was just the lighting or maybe it was Jonathan's mind playing tricks on him again but he could have sworn it looked exactly like blood. 

"What wine is that?" he asked.

Dracula put hazel eyes upon him and grinned. "Only the finest. If I recall correctly, Sanguis is what they call it in Latin. It's a special kind. It is everything and only within it...can we find the truth."

There was silence and then Jonathan suddenly sat up straight and searched around frantically with trembling finger's. Where was the map? Where was the map?

He needed it. He had to find his way back down there. He had to show Dracula that he was...telling...the truth.

"Looking for this, Johnny?" 

Dracula layed the lost map down in front of him and pushed it closer. 

"You dropped it on your way to wherever you were going. I picked it up for you." 

Jonathan eyed the map and then eyed Dracula. He squinted. Looked down, rubbed his eyes and squinted again.

Dracula looked...younger. Alot younger. But based on his previous state that was an understatement.

He was Jonathan's age but slightly older. His hair was luxurious and black, short enough that it didn't hang but long enough that he could side part it and sweep it over. 

His eyes were a dangerous shade of hazel. They spoke of both subtle power and control. 

He smiled and his teeth were fantastically white. The canines were sharp, absurdly so and there were two pairs instead of the usual one. His face as a whole was something a painter would fantasize of. His body a temple. Black hair on muscular forearm's, shameless smirk upon his face. His white button up open at the chest, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, black vest overtop. Black slacks and polished dress shoes. He was standing straight and even though Jonathan was sitting he could tell that the man topped him by about half a foot or more. 

"You-you-you look...you look..."

"I look what Johnny?" 

"Younger" Jonathan managed. "Your English is perfect. The first night we met...you were old, you walked with a cane, on the way upstairs you claimed to need help with your speech."

"Such a gentleman. Why do you _flatter_ me?" 

Dracula's voice was as smooth as silk. 

He leaned back against the table on his palms, his posture relaxed. He turned his head to address Jonathan and the younger man found himself victim to crimson cheek's.

"I hate to bother you so, but we must take care of this nightly issue. Please be careful for me. We cannot return you in any way damaged to your beautiful Mina."

"I don't understand, I told you what happened it's just that...wait. Did I mention Mina?" 

Dracula sighed and shrugged. "I think you spoke of her beauty at dinner."

"I don't recall that."

It was true, Jonathan didn't recall that. He'd told Dracula that he was to be married but never the name of his bride and Dracula had never asked him.

"Perhaps I heard it in your blood. You would be true to know, Johnny, that blood sings."

"Johnny, Johnny" Jonathan groaned. He rubbed his head and ran his hand through his sweaty hair.

"You keep calling me Johnny, over and over. No one calls me that."

"No one?"

"No one."

"The beautiful Mina does. My dearest Johnny you haven't forgotten have you?"

My _dearest_...Johnny. His dearest. Dracula was calling him...his dearest. Jonathan's cheek's lit up once again with heat against his will.

"Forgot..forgotten? I've...forgotten."

"Johnny are you feeling alright?"

The buttons on his shirt were halfway gone. His hair seemed to be thinning. His skin was marked criss-cross and up and down with the scratches of fingernails...fingernails!

"Look!" Jonathan exclaimed holding out his arm and shaking it with a vicious tenacity. "Look! The scratches! The scratches of the people down below."

Dracula knelt down beside him and caressed his face with one hand in an almost loving way, murmuring to him as one would murmur to a young child. 

"Johnny, there are no people down below. You must know this. You got drunk last night and found your way downstairs. Scratched yourself up rolling around on the floor."

"B-but I didn't I swear I-"

"You did. You _did_. It's ok. I still love you Johnny I promise. Now I need you to do something for me. Can you do something for me?"

He didn't wait for Jonathan's reply. He pulled three pieces of paper off the table and put them in front of Jonathan next to a quill and ink. 

"I need you to write three letters for me Johnny. Three. Can you say that? Three?"

"Three" Jonathan repeated and then once again, fainter, "three."

He stood up and promptly collapsed onto the floor. 

Dracula tsked and smiled. He rolled his sleeves up though they couldn't roll any further and leaned down to take Jonathan by the arm's. 

"Come now. Up, up. There, set yourself down. Good, that's the ticket. Here, take this."

He dipped the quill in ink and curled Jonathan's hand around it.

"Three" Dracula drawled in that mouthwatering accent of his. "Three letters, three different dates, preferably a months time apart, all to Mina."

Mouthwatering? Jonathan pinched himself and then did it again just to be sure. Dracula wasn't mouthwatering. He was, just an ordinary man. Extraordinarily good looking but a man nonetheless. What was he thinking? He...he had... There was something he was set to do in a months time but he couldn't remember what? Plans, families, a venue.

What was it? What was it?

"Who?" 

"Mina."

"Who is that?"

Dracula swirled his wine around in it's glass and sipped off the top. A thin sheen of red settled upon his lower lip and he swiped his tongue across it.

"You must be joking Johnny. Your fiancee back at home. Remember? Mina. Mina Murray. The two of you are supposed to be getting married in a month."

Married? He was to be married? Jonathan clutched his head and groaned softly. He couldn't remember anything. His head was swimming, scattered thoughts that made no sense even when put together. 

A baby's cry filled the air. Jonathan flinched and glanced back and forth between Dracula and the staircase like a wild animal. 

"What was that?"

"It was nothing."

"A baby" he gasped. "I heard a baby."

"There is no baby. The letters Johnny. The letters. Concentrate."

The cry sounded again, louder this time. It sounded close. It was in the room with them. 

"The baby, there's a baby!"

For the first time Dracula snapped at him and Jonathan found himself trully afraid. "There's no baby Jonathan! There's no baby! The letters. Write the letters! Write them or don't write them I don't care!"

When he was finished he looked upon Jonathan who cowered down close to the table and made a face. 

"Forgive me. Please. I just need these letters. Here..."

He set down a picture of a beautiful woman with blonde hair, sunkissed skin and bright blue eyes, smiling. 

"Company while you work."

Jonathan gazed upon the picture and it occurred to him, somewhere deep in the back of his memories that he knew her. But he could not remember anything else. What was her name again? 

He turned the photo on it's back where he found a small, elegant inscription written in ink. "To my dearest Johnny" it said. "Get home soon. Love, Mina."

"I-I can't remember her. Where did you get this?"

"From your room of course."

"I can't remember her."

"Well that's quite all right it's no worry. I must admit you do look rather drained."

"And you look very young."

"All thanks to you."

Dracula picked up a small blanket covered sack set upon the opposite end of the table and once again the sound of a baby's crying reached Jonathan's ear's.

"The letters" Dracula called as he ascended up the stairs with the sack in his arms. "Remember the letters Johnny. Three. All to Mina. Quickly quickly. We wouldn't want you to forget."

The letters the letters the letters the letters the letterstheletterstheletters. Jonathan stood up and collapsed again.

"Wait" he called. "Wait, please!"

He dragged himself forwards on his forearms and then fell onto his front. Dracula's form continued it's ascent up the stairs and promptly dissapeared into the upper regions of the castle.

Jonathan opened his eyes. He blinked. He opened them again and then closed them and this time, promptly fell asleep.


	5. Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan deteriorates and makes another horrifying discovery.

A continuous and gradually winding curve. That was the definition of a spiral and the very thing that Jonathan compared his mind to as he went more and more insane. 

It'd been three day's officially since he'd arrived to Dracula's manor and in that three day's time he had gone from being a tall, healthy, handsome young man to a stooping, coughing, deteriorating old corpse. 

Of course, it'd all started the night he'd discovered the boxes downstairs. His body had begun to go through various physical changes, one of which which was to continuously drip with copious amounts of sweat that he couldn't stop with bathing and his hair growing to be oil drenched and stringy. 

From there it'd spread to his fingers and down to his toes where his nails had begun to drop off one by one. Almost every hour he looked down and another one was gone, dissapeared somewhere within the castle. His hair faded more and then eventually he was left with only a few tufts in the back but he was sure that with the pace of his rapid deterioration they'd be gone sometime within the next day. 

Bulbous pimples and slimy orafices had sprung forth along his skin from the tip of his toes to the very top of his head. His breathing grew heavy, his bones weak. Even a walk of a few steps was a chore for him and frequently he had to stop and catch his breath. 

His day's were the same.

By light, he spent his time limping throughout the castle with a fistful of maps and by darkness he spent his time in the prescence of Dracula who bade him write his letters and continuously reassured him that none of the things he'd seen were real. None of their visits had anything to do with the purchase of the property in England which was the only reason he'd come in the first place. 

Dracula, he noticed, continued to grow steadily stronger. Every wrinkle he had faded away. His eyes sparkled and his teeth shone by the light of the fire. The only thing about him that didn't change were his fingernails which for some reason remained pointed and sharp, a sickly brown color that spoke of bad hygiene though Jonathan knew that to be untrue. The rest of the man was spotless.

More and more Jonathan's memory failed him but his natural intelligence survived.

He could see what was going on all around him just as good as anyone else could but failed to be able to remember simple things like where he was born and who he was engaged to. 

Dracula took the time to remind him at first, careless whispers in his ear of "My dearest Johnny" that layed the man's heart momentarily to rest but eventually stopped altogether reminding him of who exactly he was.

Thankfully, Jonathan was not fully deteriorated...yet. He still remembered small bits and pieces of his life here and there. He hoped that he would not forget them all but it was very likely that eventually, he would.

//

"Hello?"

Jonathan held the map out in his hand and entered the barren walkway. It was the same as the one down below though instead of darkness it was filled with light from the afternoon sun.

Here, there was a secret chamber of some sort at the end that held God knows what. Jonathan was going to to find out, even if it killed him.

He put down the map for a moment and used all his strength to push the stone wall from it's position.

Once inside the room he looked around curiously only to find that it was filled with...more boxes. Though this time there were only three and they were particularly massive in size.

He walked around them in circles, back and forth, back and forth. The sound of a baby's cry nearly caused him to jump straight out if his skin. 

When he looked up on top of the middle crate there was a woman squatting, with her head tilted. With skinny limbs and whispy, wild strand's of hair, wrinkles that stretched deep into the existing skin, she looked only slightly better than the corpse's down below. The baby's crying stopped.

"Hello?" Jonathan said. 

"You" the woman replied. 

"Me?"

" _You_."

"It's you" Jonathan said breathlessly. "You. You're the one who was at the window. You opened it that night, didn't you? In the storm?" 

The woman giggled and tittered to herself like a young child. 

"He doesn't know that I can get out if the box" she hissed. She had an accent he couldn't seem to identify. For all he knew she wasn't from anywhere near here. "Don't tell him."

"I won't."

A squint of the eye's and a curious tilt of the head before the question, "Are you his friend?"

His friend? Hahahahahaha. Jonathan had to stop himself from doubling over and laughing. Friend's? Why, they weren't even mere acquaintance's. 

"No, I'm not. I-urm-I mean-I work for him. I'm a lawyer. I'm from England."

"I think he's made you his friend."

'Why?"

"What's England?"

The fast change of subject caught Jonathan off guard. He stuttered and stumbled to come up with the answer and in the end it turned out to be more question than answer. 

"England" he said. "It's a country. It's where I'm from. You know it. You must know it, you're speaking English now."

The woman swayed loosely back and forth like a monkey on a thin branch. Jonathan could smell her where he stood and she smelled, rank, like water did when it had a dead animal rotting inside. 

"I learnt it" she said eventually. She threw her head back and laughed. "I learnt it."

"How?" Jonathan asked. " _How_ , tell me how."

"It tasted fun."

"Tasted?" Jonathan frowned and lowered his hand where he'd raised it above his waist. "Did you say tasted?"

"Once you are the Counts friend, all languages are the same."

"You're trapped here" Jonathan said suddenly. 

His legs ached. His entire body ached. He knew this conversation was spinning out of control and that if anything productive was to come out of it he needed to spin it back. 

"You're trapped too" the woman smiled. 

"No no no, you don't understand. I want to help you."

"Then tell him I'm hungry!" She hissed and looked disgustedly down at her box. "He only gives me scraps, tiny little things that count for nothing."

The baby. Dracula had been feeding her baby's. Jonathan thought he was going to to be sick. So that meant that...on the day the Count had first bade him write his letters, the baby had been real. And he'd taken it-he'd taken it upstairs and given it to her. To _feed_.

"Oh God" he mumbled. He stumbled back and covered his mouth with one trembling hand. "Oh God. I should have stopped him. Why didn't I stop him?"

"I'm hungry!"

The woman hissed again revealing wholly sharpened teeth and jumped down from the box to face him. Her eyes were bloodshot, completely red even in the whites and Jonathan scrambled to get back away from her.

"Ok! Ok! I-I'll tell him you're hungry!"

"I change my mind" she said suddenly. She opened her mouth and long string's of drool came cascading down to the floor. "I'm hungry _now_."

Jonathan turned to run. She was faster. 

They tumbled together on the floor only it was less of a tumble for Jonathan and more of a beating. He yelled, hyperventilating as he attempted to hold her off with just his arm's.

Her teeth clicked loudly together when she missed her intended target. His neck. She was aiming for his neck. 

She flipped him over and put her weight down on top of him and for some reason was ungodly strong. Jonathan struggled in her grip but it was no use. 

She used both hands at the same time and mapped out a large section of skin in-between his head and shoulder's which she then rather promptly sank her teeth into.

Jonathan screamed.

The pain he felt was like nothing he'd ever experienced before. It was like several small knives going in all at once. Someone's teeth were literally buried within his neck and he could faintly feel the slow pulling of something being drawn from within him and with the sound's of the woman and the mess all around his neck and shirt he could say with much certainty that it was his blood. 

"Of all the things I've seen. I must say that this really quite takes the cake."

Draculas voice pulled him back to the brink of consciousness. The woman lifted her head and backed away like lightning. 

"Dracula!" She called. She wiped a hand over her mouth and it came away smeared across with blood. In Jonathan's eyes she looked almost ashamed. "Dracula!"

The man tsked and pulled his cape tighter over his shoulders. "I knew that lid wasn't tight enough."

For the moment he ignored Johnathan where he lay dying upon the floor and instead turned his attention to the woman of whom he shook his head and pulled an expression defining what was no doubt serious dissapointment. 

"I feed you" he said. "You're the only one I care to feed and yet you do sinful thing's like this. I even made you a...quite wonderful box of your own and you discrace me."

She remained silent. Dracula moved and she flinched, scrambling to get back into the box instead of trying to get away. Jonathan's hearing was halfway gone by now but he could still hear the man's murmuring.

"No, no, no, love. Being contained isn't an option anymore. You've escaped your box. You've destroyed what's mine. For that, love, you must die."

There were sound's of a struggle of some sort, Dracula was laughing and she was screaming. And then suddenly there was a loud crack and her screaming quickly ceased but his laughing continued. 

"I've never seen it work with a baby before" he mused. "I think I just might keep it for a while."

He chuckled dryly. "I hope this doesn't mean I'm getting sentimental."

"Why...why did you kill her?" Johnathan croaked. 

"Kill who? Oh. Um, well, I wanted to see if she'd die I suppose. Johnny don't give me look. You were a child once, you know the feeling. Didn't you break your toys apart to see how they worked?"

"You're a monster."

"You're a lawyer."

"Nobody's perfect."

"Ah" Dracula said sighing. "A stake through the heart."

"Why did you really kill her?" Jonathan wheezed.

Dracula smiled. "Why, I've added you to my collection. I only ever have three at a time."

"Three what?"

"Johnny."

"Three _what_?"

"Bride's."

"Bride's?"

"Yes. Bride's. At least, I think that's the right word for it, you see-"

He leaned his back up against the nearest crate and motioned to it with his hand "-im trying to reproduce but I'm afraid it's proving to be quite the difficult task. Especially, when there are only three of you at a time but anymore and I'd scarecely have time for myself."

Jonathan stared at the rays of sun coming in through the window. If only he could just...reach out and touch them. Maybe then he'd be all right. 

"Ah, my dearest Johnny" Dracula sighed. "You're just about done aren't you? She was a thirsty little thing. And to think, she was going to keep you in that box all to herself."

Jonathan raised his head, with difficulty, to look Dracula in the eyes.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"Of course I'm going to kill you."

At Jonathan's shocked expression he rolled his eyes. "Why is it that death always comes as such a shock to mortals."

"You took everything from me."

"Of course I did. You, dearest, are my gate to England."

"Why England?"

"The people, Johnny, the people! I've been trying to tell people that for centuries. You are what you eat." 

He leaned down and ran his hand down the younger man's face, caressing him slowly. 

"But don't you worry about that now. You rest. Keep your strength. You've got an important future ahead of you. You see...sometimes, when I kill my bride's...they don't come back. But you... _you_ Johnny have proven to be absolutely extraordinary."

He smiled with all his teeth and for the first time Jonathan noticed that they were all sharp.

"I will kill you, yes, in the hopes that you return to me, for when you do, with that intelligent mind and plump lip's and astonishing big blue eyes of yours, I promise that you will be my _finest_ bride."


	6. Sunset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan takes one last look at the sun.

For some reason this sunset was uniquely gorgeous compared to all the others. Maybe because it was to be his last.

After finishing their chat Dracula had picked him up and carried him out of the room and down the corridor and up the winding staircase to a new door that Jonathan had never seen before. 

Tough luck it was, that he couldn't find it before. He hadn't had enough time with the maps. He wondered to himself if Dracula had confiscated them or if they were still up in his room, under his sheets where he'd left them. Regardless, if he had found them sooner, maybe thing's would have been different. 

They'd gone out together and Dracula had layed him out in the sun, keeping himself cloaked within the shadows. Before he'd been put down Dracula had held him so that he could see the view, and it was magnificent. Countless trees stretching out as far as the eye could see in every direction. An ocean of green. Eagle's soaring. Wing's spread as they surveyed their domain.

Dracula layed down beside him on his side. Jonathan sighed softly, pressing his fingers down against the brick, feeling it's hardness on the tips of his fingers, absorbing it as a bee would honey from a summer flower. He cried, a single tear that rolled over his mangled face and he felt a sadness deep within himself that he would never be able to describe, even if he were to live for a billion year's. 

"Johnny, if you don't mind I want you to do one last thing for me before you go. I haven't seen her in hundreds of year's. Describe her to me."

"Who?"

"I've had artists paint her-" Dracula said and for some reason his voice sounded undeniably sad. "-and poet's capture her in word's, and Mozart wrote such a pretty little tune, but I-I..."

Who? Still, Jonathan's brain ached with confusion. He hoped this wouldn't be his last thought. Confusion. If a man died confused then he really was lost. 

"I really should have spared him" the older man continued. "But...forget about him for now, what does a lawyer see? Johnny, in my memory, she sets behind the second highest peak this time of year, and she's red. Is she red Johnny?"

The Sun. Dracula wanted him to describe the sun.

Johnathan coughed. "Look for yourself." 

"But that would burn me to dust."

"Good."

Jonathan could. If he wanted to. He could describe to Dracula the sun, in all it's glory, in a lawyers word's. But he wouldn't. If he and many countless other's could go on without their lives then so could Dracula go on without his sun. 

"Fair enough" the man replied sadly. "Absolutely fair enough."

Jonathan turned to look at him. "Will you keep me in a box?"

"Keep your eyes on the sun Johnny. It'll be the last time you see her. There will be a box waiting for you, when you walk, yes. Don't you see? An end is a blessing. Dying gives you size. It's the mountaintop from which your whole life is at last visible."

"Spare me" Jonathan said. Using the last of his strength he dragged himself back into the shadows to Draculas feet and begged the count to keep him. 

"Spare me, please. _Please_. I'll do anything you want. Just don't kill me... _please_..."

"I just want you to be my bride, Johnny."

"I'll be your bride just spare me!" 

Jonathan was at his wits end. He'd already lost everything. His fiancee, his family, his memories, everything. He couldn't lose this last thing though. He couldn't lose his existence. 

Dracula knelt down on one knee and bundled Jonathan into his arms. His skin was surprisingly warm considering that from what information Jonathan had gathered, he was dead.

"How can I spare you?" He asked. "How can I keep you by my side if we are not one and the same?"

"I don't know" Jonathan said sniffling. "I don't know-please- _please_..."

He felt it when Dracula brought both of his hands up and pressed them into the sides of his head. Frantically he grabbed at the man. At his arm's and his hands and his shirt. Maybe if he held onto him... Maybe if he held onto him tight enough Dracula would let him live. 

"I don't want to go" he sobbed. "Please spare me, please. I don't want to go! I'll do anything you ask of me I swear! Anything! I-I won't try and kill you after I turn!"

Dracula chuckled. "Were you thinking about it Johnny?" 

"Yes-n-no! No! I just...don't kill me. Pleeeaase."

The Count smirked. If Jonathan had had hair still, finger's would have been running through it but instead Dracula rested his hand against his head. The ulcers didn't seem to disturb him. None of it did. But then again why would it? He was dead. 

The wind blew softly against them, ruffling their clothing a bit, making Jonathan feel as though he were truly alive and not a walking corpse.

If they were to have had a painter sitting beside them, this was the picture he would capture.

"Do you remember the sun Johnny?" Dracula asked. 

"Do-do I-do I remember-?" 

"The sun. Do you remember her?"

"Yes. Yes. Yes. I remember it."

"Good. Take one last breath for me, my dearest Johnny."

Jonathan obeyed him. 

"Brilliant."

The snap of his neck was quick and relatively painless. He fell out on the ground and Dracula sighed and prepared to pick him up and take him back inside. To await the transformation of his newest possession.

Jonathan awoke. 

For a moment he twitched and cunvulsed upon the floor before raising himself into a sitting position and gasping for air. 

"Johnny!" Dracula exclaimed clapping, a delighted smile spreading across his face. "Back so soon? Welcome. How do you feel?"

Johnathan stood on his feet and promptly collapsed. 

Dracula chuckled. "Usually people have a bit of a lie down first."

Jonathan coughed and hacked digging his dirty fingernails into the brick below him. "I can't breath!" he cried. "I can't breath! I can't-I can't breath!" 

"Johnny, relax" Dracula soothed. "You don't have to breath. You no longer have to function as a mortal does."

Jonathan's finger's glided across his face and neck and down to his wrist. The ulsers and pimples were still there. His hair was still gone. His teeth were still rotting. He still felt incredibly weak and fatigued. Only he had no pulse. Just like that, his heart was no longer beating. 

"I-I can't feel my pulse. I can't...I can't. I can't feel it-what-?" 

Dracula continued to stand there, watching him. For all Jonathan knew he was getting a kick out of the whole thing. He didn't know what it was that got him going. That was, if there was something that got him going.

Deep breaths, Jonathan, deep breaths. He couldn't do it. Standing on his feet he stumbled and fell, his right hand falling inches into the sunlight and it _burned_. 

He screamed with pain and pulled it back. 

Dracula ran a finger across his own lower lip and smirked. "Hurt's, doesn't it?"

Jonathan trembled. His lips quivered and his eyes halfway closed as though he were getting ready to cry but nothing came out. 

"You're going to be a lively one, Johnny. I can tell. You came back so quickly. Impressive. You even have the beginnings of a will of your own."

He walked himself over to Jonathan's body and lifted his head up, holding it in his hand. 

"None of the others have much beyond hunger but you? Look at you go! Don't you see? This changes everything. The other's just became beasts but you've kept your spirit. Johnny, you're like me."

Jonathan spat. "I'm nothing like you!"

"So much fire in you."

Draculas expression was one of complete awe. Whereas before he had been watching him as one would watch a favorited pet, now he was watching him as one would watch a potential companion.

The hazel of his eyes was brilliant. Dark and bright at the same time. Jonathan's brain worked hard to try and convince him. There must still be good in him there must-

No. There was no good in him. Not anymore.

"Trully my finest bride" the man, the vampire murmured.

He slapped both hands on his knees and lifted Jonathan off the ground, carrying him bridal style back into the castle. The torches on the walls were already lit. Who had done so? They surely hadn't been lit before.

Suddenly, Johnathan remembered the boxes. All of them. Row's upon rows of sealed mahogany. Darkness. A claustrophobic's worst nightmare.

He'd be left to rot away like the other's. No one would come searching for him. He'd never see anyone he loved ever again. He'd be Draculas play thing. Taken out when he was deemed useful and then put back. _Sealed_ back until his next playdate had arrived. 

He fought weakly against Dracula but the man held him firmly in his grip, talking to himself as they walked, his eyes up and away. "Not a box this time, not a box..."

Where would he take him, Jonathan thought, if he wasn't putting him in a box. Where could he possibly be going that was somehow better?

"Are you putting me in a box?" He croaked.

"How could I, Johnny, how could I? You've changed thing's. You've come out just like me."

They descended the staircase and even with Draculas claim's of a change of heart Jonathan was still afraid for his future.

"If I were to put you in a box I'd surely waste your potential" the vampire said and then addded as a second thought, "When banana's are ripe you eat them, you don't leave them out on the table to shrivel away."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a sidenote if you didn't notice: in this chapter I never actually describe what the sun looks like. Its literally the topic but there's like...zero description almost as if it's to make you feel the way Dracula feels, like you're being denied the view. P.S. I've been spelling Jonathan wrong this whole time :(


	7. Feast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan has his first taste of blood.

Dracula deposited him downstairs in the dining room and then left him there, heading down below instead of up. Jonathan's eye's searched the area frantically. Whatever cruel plans the vampire had for him would surely be starting very soon. 

Jonathan wanted no part in them.

It was dark outside now, maybe if he gathered up enough strength and moved fast enough he could escape. He could find his way back down the road and into town. From there he could find a cavern and lay low for a while, write a letter to Mina and have her send for him. He remembered her again. Not very much but the memories of her and his previous life were slowly returning. 

He used the table as a lift and stood upright on his feet. His legs felt like jelly. They probably were.

Moving slowly he made his way out of the dining room and down the front hall to where he remembered the front door was located, throwing fearful glances over his shoulders every now and again to be sure that he was not being followed. With how the Castle had treated him so far he half expected the door to have disappeared. But no. God assure him, it was still there.

He tugged on the heavy wooden doors, the left one first and then the right, with one hand and then both but they didn't budge. 

"What?" He sobbed. He pulled again, harder. Nothing. 

What was happening? Why were the door's locked? Why were the door's locked from the _inside_? When had they even been locked in the first place? 

"Johnny, are you serious?"

Jonathan swiveled around quickly. If he were still human his heart would've been beating fast but since he wasn't there was nothing to betray his emotion except his face. His chest was empty. The _thought_ of fear was still in him but the feeling wasn't. The feeling was gone...forever. 

Dracula was standing there, leaning with his back against the wall and his arm's folded across his chest.

"I leave you alone for one second and you go straight for the door. If we're to do this you have to work with me. I know you don't want to. That's okay. But seriously dearest-" he backed Jonathan up against the door and took his chin in his hand, turning his head so that he could whisper seductively in his ear. 

"-I'd _hate_ to have to tie you up."

Jonathan shivered. The threat was obvious. 

"Now. Can you make it back to the dining room or do I have to carry you again?" 

Jonathan's leg's answered the question for him. Dracula scooped him up and carried him back.

"Don't worry" he said. "I don't mind it."

Jonathan's finger's gripped the chair arm's tightly and to his great surprise the wood splintered underneath his touch. 

"I don't know if you've noticed or not, you do seem a little strung out still, but your appearance is still the same. Have you noticed, Johnny. Have you noticed your appearance?"

"Of course I have" he snapped. "How could I not?"

"Well it must change" Dracula answered. "I'll have you either way but I must say that I'd prefer you return to your previous state."

The older vampire left the room. There came the sound of a mysterious thumping around the corner and then suddenly he returned dragging a large man behind him by his shirt collar.

The man's face was absolutely horrified. He shouted through his gag and twisted every which way in an attempt to get out of the vampires iron grasp.

Jonathan looked on horrified. "Who-who-who is that?" He asked cringing. "Where did you get him? Why do you have him?"

"Don't you remember him? He's your driver."

Jonathan squinted. Dracula jerked the man forward so that he stopped moving and when he rose his head the lawyer took a good long look at his face. Dracula was right. It was his driver. The first one who'd brought him halfway up and then denied him the rest of the trip. 

"That only answers one question" he said.

"Ah yes...the second question. Why, he's for you."

He couldn't be serious. He couldn't possibly be serious. There was no way in hell he thought that Jonathan was going to stoop so low as to drink this innocent man's blood. And even if he wasn't innocent, the answer was still the same. 

"I'd rather die."

Dracula chuckled. "Johnny, Johnny. When will you realize? You're already dead."

He took a firmer grip on the man's collar and dragged him effortlessly to where Jonathan was seated. Procuring a knife from somewhere within the folds of his cape he smiled and then put the knife through and across the man's arm.

He screamed.

Jonathan's first reaction was to shut his eyes and look away. His second...his second...his... _second_...

A smell hit his nose. He recoiled instantly but came back all the same. In all his life, he'd never smelt a smell as sweet. As utturely _intoxicating_ as this one. 

He pulled against it.

Large river's of crimson slid across the man's skin and down to the floor, collecting there in a single large puddle. Jonathan pulled some more. This was wrong. This was wrong. This was...sin. 

Think of Mina. What would Mina say if she could see him now? Would he drink her blood if she was standing here before him? Would...would he...would...he...

The sweet smell carressed his nose as a mother caressed her child. His senses fine tuned to his surroundings. He could hear the man's heartbeat where he sat. 

"No" he whimpered. "No, no, _no_! I won't do it! I won't do it! I-wont! I won't!" 

His blue eyes turned crimson in the light of the fire. His teeth elongated and sharpened in response to his nose translating the scent. He gripped the chair underneath him until the wood beneath his hands broke straight away.

He bared his teeth in a menacing snarl and locked eye's with Dracula where he crouched smiling. 

Another rivulet of blood cascaded down to the floor. 

"Give in Johnny" he said chuckling. " _Give_ _in_."

Jonathan went berserk. 

He leapt off the chair and onto the floor and in two enormous bounds on hands and feet tackled the driver to the ground. The floor cracked where he slammed the man's head down. His serated teeth dug straight into his jugular and blood sprayed across his front. He didn't care. 

It was so good. So very _brilliant_. A starving man he was and in this very blood...was life. 

In all his life he'd never felt a desire so great. He'd never felt a pull this strong. One that grabbed him and threw him bodily into the void. It was madness. 

The man's blood he swallowed down in large, vicious gulps. Eye's wild and crazed, body hunched, he looked as though he'd gone swimming in red paint. 

Faintly, he could hear Dracula chuckling behind him but in his state of madness he could care less what it was that Dracula did as long as he had blood flowing into his system. 

He drank the blood until the driver's body was an empty hollow shell of the man it once was and then dropped him. 

"Good Johnny!" Dracula said clapping. "Good! I tell you now that's the best I've seen in all my hundreds of year's!"

He knelt down in front of him. His own eyes were red and his teeth serated. Jonathan's face was drenched in blood. He put his tongue against it and licked a stripe.

"How did it taste?"

For a long moment Jonathan convulsed with the adrenaline coursing through him and when he returned, cried, though once again nothing came out. His face just contorted in and out with dry, meaningless, sadness. He'd just murdered a man in cold blood. An innocent man with a life, maybe a wife at home and a few kids. Sank his teeth into the man's throat and drained him of his spirit.

"I'm a monster" he said shaking. "I'm a monster! You made me a monster!"

The Count shrugged and ran his hands over Jonathan's face. "Maybe so, but it's only natural. This is your urge now, Johnny. Embrace it. It will be your only one until the end of time."

Jonathan sobbed. He'd never had kid's. He'd never sailed across the Atlantic. He'd never become a famous writer. He'd never even had his last meal. Well, he had, but of course at the time he hadn't known it. He'd never known to do anything for his last time as a human except look at the sun. 

"This is why I told you to remember her" Dracula whispered. "Whenever you begin to trully realize what it is that you've become, she will keep you sane."

"But I'm not sane!" Jonathan screamed. "I'm not sane! I'm not anywhere near sane!" 

"No" the Count said and smiled. "You're my finest bride."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dracula: 1 Jonathan: 0


	8. Revelations

Dracula eyed Jonathan from across the table.

Jonathan felt small, for some reason, where upon starting his journey he'd felt somewhat larger than life. He'd had the prospect of marriage, a new house, a promotion...kid's. Now, he was larger than life but irreversibly so.

"Why, you're looking better already" Dracula commented. "By morning you should be back the way you were."

"How comforting."

Jonathan rolled his eyes and turned himself the other way round. Just two short hour's before the older vampire had disposed of the driver's body while Jonathan had sat in the corner covered head to toe in blood, rocking back and forth and moaning about how he was a monster.

"How does it feel?"

Jonathan raised his eyes.

"How does it _feel_?" He hissed. "I don't know _Count_. How is it _supposed_ to feel?"

"That's not my question to answer." 

"And what is?"

"I don't know Johnny, you'll have to figure that out for yourself."

"God help me."

"I don't think there's much that he can do for you now."

Jonathan threw the object nearest to him, a decorative wine glass and it shattered against the wall.

"And what would you know about what he can do!"

Dracula didn't flinch. "I was human once" he said. "Like you I had big dreams, aspirations-I still do actually. You fail to understand that."

"And I also fail to understand why you'd take my life away."

"You will, one day. I promise you will."

"I won't."

Jonathan got up and walked right past him, heading up the stairs to his room. He'd had enough of Dracula's foolishness in the past four day's to last him over twelve thousand lifetime's.

The Count appeared before him and he stumbled backwards catching himself on the wooden bannister before he could fall over.

"What was that?" He gasped. "Where did you just come from?"

"Why, the dining room of course. Weren't we just there before?"

Jonathan didn't think his eyes could roll any further but they did. He pushed passed the man and continued up the stairs, Dracula following close behind.

"How did you do that?"

"Let's just say that being a vampire comes with many...useful power's, so to speak."

"Power's? Can I do that?"

"Why Johnny, I'm not sure. You've only been a vampire a couple of hours, half a day at best. Eager are we?"

Jonathan paused with his hand on the doorknob to his room and turned to hiss venemously, "The last thing I am is eager. I'll find a way to reverse this. There has to be a way."

"Oh but there isnt-"

He slammed the door behind himself when he entered leaving Dracula standing outside and just as he'd predicted the man appeared in his room moment's later, seated precariously on the edge of his bed.

"What do you want?"

"Why, to talk of course."

Jonathan moved himself as far away as was physically possible. He didn't want him thinking they were close just because they were both damned for all eternity. 

"Well I don't want to talk."

"But I do. And I must say that once I'm in, dearest, it's _very hard_ to get me out."

Jonathan's luggage was still laying open on his bed. He rummaged through it, spreading both papers and clothes all over the blanket and picked out a clean outfit which Dracula of course found some way to comment on.

"Good. Good. As much as all the blood becomes you I must say it'd be quite thrilling to see you dressed in something...cleaner."

Jonathan tightened his grip on his bundle of clothes and glared. 

"Do you have to stand here and watch me do it?"

"Well what's the fun in standing outside?"

"You're impossible."

Dracula vanished into the air and for a moment Jonathan just stood there in silence. He changed quickly and effeciently, replacing as he took off. He didn't know how far the man's "power's" reached. For all he knew he was still in the room.

Dracula appeared back in the room almost the instant he finished buttoning his shirt. How he knew Jonathan was finished the younger man had no idea. He probably had still been in the room. At least he'd changed quickly.

There was no mirror for him to look in.

Upon entering the castle and being taken to his room he'd quickly found out that there were none.

"On the night that I arrived I forgot to ask you" he said aloud. "Where are all of your mirrors?"

"I don't have any" came the reply. "I find them quite...unconventional. Especially seeing as I can't see my own reflection."

"What?"

"That's, one of the side effects. You don't show on reflective surface's. It really is as though you no longer exist."

The window was closed. Jonathan ran to it and peered carefully at the glass. There was nothing. Nothing but the furniture in the room and the trees in the forest reflecting back at him. He turned away and slid down onto the floor.

What was happening? What was it that he'd become?

"It comes as quite of a shock, I know. But you get used to it, really."

" _You_ get used to it" Jonathan said trembling. He ran his hand over his head where his hair was already halfway grown back. "You get used to it because _you're_ used to being a monster."

"We aren't monsters dearest, creatures of the night perhaps" he said nodding. "But not monsters. Monsters are evil. We are no such thing. Our need for the blood of the living is what sustains us. If it wasn't for that we'd surely die."

"I thought you said we were already dead."

"In a sense. Our body has died but our _spirit_? Our spirit lives on."

"What happens in the morning?" Jonathan asked. "What happens in the morning when we wake up?"

Dracula looked away and back ruffling his cape with his hand as some sort of cheap distraction.

"Now that, I fear, might pose a serious problem."

"Why?"

"Well, _I'll_ go to sleep as I normally tend to do, but _you_ I'm afraid will have to remain awake. You see we vampires do need sleep of course. For the...conventional reasons I suppose. Sort of like a daytime refresher and if we don't, well then eventually we die."

"So vampires can die."

"In more ways than one yes, but I won't tell you more than you already know. I would hate for you to start getting ideas."

Jonathan waved him away. "So what's the issue? You said vampires need to sleep. Why can't I sleep?"

"Well now, Johnny that's the problem. You see, in order to sleep, you need a bed of soil from your own origin on which to lie your head."

"I-I don't understand."

"Soil from your own origin meaning soil from wherever it is that you call home."

Jonathan gazed upon the floor and scraped his fingers across it. The nails were dirty and rotten looking. They were growing back, of course, from where he'd lost them but they were pointy and sharp.

"Home" he said softly. "Home as in Lannester Scott's."

"Precisely. And I don't know what your map looks like but that's quite the ways away isn't it?"

"No" Jonathan said. "No. Y-you said blood is what keeps us alive and now you're talking about soil."

"Blood sustains us for a time, yes" Dracula soothed, "But without the soil the blood is nothing."

"So I'm going to die."

"Not exactly. I must say from personal experience that it takes quite a while for the effects to really grab you so to speak. Blood can hold it off for a while but eventually finding the soil is a must."

"So I'm going to die."

"Johnny, Johnny" the man whispered. "Why such a poor sport? We'll figure something out. Have faith."

"I had faith" Jonathan spat. "And you took it away."

"More like changed your perspective."

Once again the vampire sat down on his bed and Jonathan glared daggers into his back. He was a vampire yes and yet, even though Jonathan would never actually admit it he was, unconventionally attractive. Charming and charismatic. It only made Jonathan want to kill him even more. 

Maybe in another universe. One where he was a regular man, Jonathan may have allowed himself to grow attracted to him. Not much as a lover because Mina would still exist and it would still be frowned upon for a man to fall into bed with another man but more as a lifelong friend. here he could never even dream of it. Here he was a monster. 

"Quit thinking so hard" the vampire said suddenly. "It's distracting."

"You can here me?" Jonathan gasped and felt his anxiety drop at the reply. 

"No but I can see it in your face."

"Quit staring at me then."

"How can I when you have such gorgeous blue eyes."

Jonathan turned away, flustured. If he'd had blood in his system he would have been blushing. Why did he have to say such things? What was his motive?

His mother had told him that once though, when he was seven and they'd been outside on a blanket staring up at the stars. She'd gazed upon him lovingly and compared his eyes to two sapphires. Specifically one's that had been set on fire. 

Jonathan ultimately said nothing in response and they sat together in his room in empty silence until eventually Dracula rose and claimed he had some "important things to take care of".

"That's it?" Jonathan questioned. "You're just gonna go to bed and leave me here?"

"Well, yes, I'm not exactly worried about you running away."

"And what if I escape?"

A smirk on Draculas part. "Johnny you must understand that you're not very fast. I'll catch you, whether the time be long or short."

Jonathan shivered. He said it with such heat, such confidence. Like he'd done this sort of thing before. With all the corpse filled boxes he had down below he probably had, many times.

"You underestimate me, I can tell." He nodded towards the doors. "Go ahead. Run. I'll unlock the entrance for you myself if you like."

Jonathan eyed the door wearily. Could he? Did he think he could make it all the way down? No. His strength was coming back but it had yet to fully return to him. This was Draculas domain. His own personal playground. It would be like child's play for him to hunt him down. 

"No" he said slowly. "I'll stay."


	9. Rancid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan goes home.

Home.

Jonathan was home. Somehow, someway, he'd found his way back. 

Home.

The lush green yard was the same. Birds chirping near the short line of trees as they did every morning after dawn. The purple lilacs bordering the walkway were the same. The short trees behind the house leading out to the forest were the same. 

Light on his feet Jonathan walked himself up the drive and entered the door. Whysoever should he knock? This was his house. 

He closed the door behind him and let his feet carry him across creme carpet, through the living room with it's light blue walls and the kitchen with it's wooden dining set. Carefully down the hallway and back to his bedroom where he dropped his luggage at his side and pushed the door open. 

"Johnny!"

Somehow Mina was even more beautiful now than when he'd left her. Her long blonde tresses billowed out over her shoulders and down her back, her brown eye's bright with the light of a thousand star's. Her cheeks were plump and full, face flushed from excitement. 

She ran to him and threw herself into his arms and he lifted her up off the ground and spun her around and around. His hands tightened around her waist, memorizing the feel of her skin.

"Johnny" she said softly, running her hand along the side of his face. "My Johnny blue eyes you've returned to me."

"Of course I have" he replied and chuckled. "How could I not?"

"How was your journey? Was it what you expected?"

The lawyer shrugged. "Just about."

He took off his coat and hat and hung them on the hooks by the door. He shot her a mega watt smile. "I must say that it wasn't the best of journeys but I can't quite complain now can I. Not when I've returned to you."

He picked her up again. She wrapped her limbs around him and they fell down together on the bed in a warm bundle of kisses and touch's and soft whispers of "I love you". 

Her nightgown was short and lavender in color. It flowed through Jonathan's seeking finger's like cool water. 

He kissed her with greedy passion, exploring her with his tongue, further unraveling her hair. She moaned around him and it sounded sweet, like violins. 

He'd missed her. He'd missed her so much and now he was here. Now she was home and he could lay with her until the sun set and longer afterwards. There were no vampires or corpse's or cloud's of bats. No darkness or shadows or mysterious maps. All of that had been a dream.

A rancid daydream, Jonathan thought. 

"Jonathan" Mina gasped. "I missed you."

He kissed her neck once, then again. 

The window was open. The white curtain fluttured in the breeze. Jonathan's back ran over with goosebumps. He kissed her again and then suddenly she flipped him over onto his back. 

Chuckling he inbedded his fingers into her hair. 

"Since when do you ever get on top?"

She unbuttoned his shirt. The movement of her hips ceased and she positioned herself in-between his legs. The position she placed her arm's made it seem as though she was attempting to cage him in. Her weight suffocated him. 

At the window the wind blew harder against the curtain.

"Mina" Jonathan moaned. He kissed her lip's. "Mina what-?"

He dug his fingers into her back. Her lip's pressed against his collar bone and all the way up to his chin. His right hand like a slippery snake it winded across her skin and embedded itself into her hair. And then suddenly, almost like a consequence...the feeling of windswept hair in his hand was gone. 

The soft finger's digging into his abdomen grew calloused and sharp on the ends. Serated teeth buried themselves in his neck. Groaning with pain Jonathan opened his eyes...

...and came face to face with Dracula. 

The vampire left off his neck and raised his head and when he did so he was grinning. And his mouth was dripping with copious amounts of blood. Jonathan's blood. Thick and scarlet, staining the bright white of the lawyer's shirt. 

"Johnny" he said slowly. He traced a finger across Jonathan's bloody neck and then licked it off.

"My Johnny blue eyes. After all this time, you've come home to me."

// 

Jonathan opened his eyes screaming. 

He was lying in a chair down below in the catacombs. He didn't know when sometime before sunrise he must have moved himself, knowing what would happen if he stayed out to wait for the sun. 

If he were human his shirt would've been drenched in sweat. Here, it was dry. 

Some dream that had been to start off his fifth day in hell. What even was that? What had that been? Mina, his house, they'd all been so real. The flower's, the door handle, her golden blonde hair. They'd all been so...touchable. Touchable thing's that he was no where near to and yet, he'd held them in his hands.

The bed below him had felt so nice. Her skin underneath his hands like silk. 

And Dracula. The vampires body above him. Blood spilling from his horrible mouth like a fountain. 

"Johnny" he'd said. "My Johnny blue eyes."

"A dream" Jonathan said aloud. "A daydream. It was all a dream."

He ran fingers through his now full head of hair. The ulsers were gone. All over his body was completely unblemished. He was a new man. A new Jonathan Harker. He was...

"I'm dead" he said. "I'm dead."

He stood although it seemed as though his legs would refused to hold him. He felt...he felt...strange. 

He felt...aroused. 

Grimacing he shook his head back and forth and banged it against the wall. It was Mina. It was Mina. He repeated it to himself over and over to try and convince his mind that it was the truth but he knew it wasn't.

Dracula. Count Dracula. Even grinning madly, eyes red, teeth sharp, blood pooling like saliva. Even then he had his qualities. There was still seduction, even in his madness... 

Jonathan shook his head again. Why couldn't he sleep? Why couldn't he find some peace in this madness? 

...and his _voice_. His voice above Jonathan's head. 

"Johnny. My Johnny blue eyes."

 _His_ , Johnny blue eyes.

"His Johnny blue eyes."

Jonathan said it aloud in some sort of dark trance. He slapped his hand over his mouth and looked around as though there were someone around to hear him. 

There wasn't. He was alone in the catacombs with nothing but the lanterns and scratch ridden walls to keep him company.

He wasn't Draculas Johnny. To Dracula he was Jonathan Harker, the lawyer from England. Only the lawyer. Ever the lawyer. And Dracula was just the old man. The hunch backed old man with the white hair that had drained his life away. That was all he was. That was all he'd _ever_ be to him. 


	10. Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan succumbs to his horrible thoughts.

It took Jonathan all of fifteen minutes to understand the real reason why Dracula took the entire day to sleep. 

There was nothing to do. Nowhere to go except down below to hide in the shadows. Nothing to think about except the past five day's which replayed in his mind over and over and over again but what good was that when everything that had happened during them was bad. 

He was dead. 

He still couldn't believe it. He pinched himself but didn't wake up from some horrible dream. He was dead. His heart was no longer beating. There was no longer blood coursing throughout his veins. His appearance was unchanged, maybe even better than when he'd started but that gave him no comfort. 

A strong believer in the Christian faith he felt as though he'd just played catch with the devil and thrown his life away. Thrown it like it was a simple ball that meant nothing to him. 

Why had he come here? Why had he taken the cursed offer of more money when he hadn't needed it? For Christ sakes he'd gone halfway around the world just to get here. 

That's what he got for being a fool. 

He pressed his palms against the wall and closed his eyes so that his lashes rested against his cheeks. He was an idiot. Mina would never want him now, even if he could somehow get to her. She'd probably forgotten him, unless...unless. Unless Dracula had sent her one of his letters. He couldn't have. It'd only been five day's but to Jonathan it seemed like five year's. 

Of course, even lethargic and half dead he'd still managed to make the letters sound half as sweet, "Worry not" and "see you soon" and "love you forever" and even better, "my dearest Mina". 

He could still picture her face from his dream. Plump cheek's, reddened face, golden tresses like silk thread. How he'd ever managed to get her attention, much less get her to accept his proposal, he had absolutely no idea. 

His feet carried him through the dark passages and down a path he felt he'd been down before. 

Where was Mina now? Was she sleeping, over a friend's, visiting her mother? Was she wide awake in bed, mind racing with thoughts of her dearly departed husband?

"Johnny."

A whisper carried to him and Jonathan whipped his head around to face behind him, eye's fighting to bridge the gap between the light of the lanterns and the darkness beyond.

"Hello?" He called.

" _Johnny_."

The voice came again. Jonathan moved down the hall away from where he'd come, his right hand connected to the wall by fingertips. 

"Johnny."

Jonathan moved faster. His legs were blurs. A right turn and a left, another left, then a right. He didn't even know where he was. Was he moving in or out? He couldn't go out. He'd burn to death in the light of the sun. 

Another few turns saw him slowing down. He wasn't out of breath. He wasn't breathing, but the voice had ceased and he feared he was going in to deep. 

Part of him also feared he'd run into that room again. That horrible cavern filled with rows upon rows of boxed corpses. Live corpse's from what he remembered. One's that clawed and grabbed and bit at his skin. 

Bride's. 

Dracula had said he had bride's, three at a time. Those corpse's down below, where they bride's? Previous one's that either hadn't made it or that he'd gotten bored of? Three at a time meant that at some point he replaced them. None of them were permanent, which meant that Jonathan himself wasn't permanent. 

Not that he wanted to be. 

He wanted his life back. His humanity had been taken from him, he wanted it back. He wanted to breath again even though he knew that with his life he was certain of an eventual death. 

It killed him even though he was already dead.

Half the time he simulated breathing because he hadn't yet forgotten how to do it. You didn't forget something you'd been doing every second since coming out of the womb. That wasn't how it worked. 

Dracula made it seem easy. If Jonathan had never figured it out he would have continued to believe the man was human. There was nothing to tell him to think otherwise. It was scary. The fact that he blended in so well. What regular human would check someone for blood in the veins, or sensitivity to the sun...or a heartbeat. 

"Johnny."

The voice came again. Jonathan gave it no reply. A long corridor greeted him and he ran straight down the middle and through a giant arched doorway. 

He stopped. 

It was Dracula, or more accurately, Draculas grave. His coffin stood anchored in the center of the room, black and concrete and reeking of death. Just the way it'd looked when Jonathan had first found it. 

It seemed his legs were unwilling to move him. This entire area was laced with danger. He knew it. 

He took one step forward and then another. For some reason the coffin scared him. Maybe it was the placement in the center of the room or maybe it was the fact that once again the lid was slightly ajar, leaving a small corner of the inside visible. 

When Jonathan peeked his head over to look he almost had a heart attack but was relieved at the sight of pitch black. Wherever Dracula was, he was too far in for Jonathan to see him. Good, let him stay there. He wasn't someone-something that needed to be seen. 

Jonathan turned away, took a hesitant step forward and then turned back.

What if he moved the lid?

The question popped into his head and once it was there he could do nothing to get it out. Just a peek, nothing excessive. And then after he'd looked he'd leave. Simple. 

The concrete slab felt more like marble when he put his hands on it. He ran his fingers against it in relishing in it's coldness. For some reason it seemed half buried, as though time had made it sink further and further into the ground. 

Jonathan moved over to the spot where the slab was cracked and put his fingers underneath. Bracing himself he pushed and it moved much easier than expected, a loud grainy sound filling the air as the hard sufaces scraped across one another. When the slap fell over on the other side he stopped. 

He leaned over and opened his eyes where he'd closed them out of fear. 

"My God."

Dracula didn't look half as scary as expected. He looked...peaceful...so to speak. Dressed sharply in the same clothes Jonathan had last seen him in,   
he was lying on his back with his hands folded across his chest. 

Was this peace?

Jonathan asked himself the question and fought to find the proper response. Dracula was dead. Undead actually, though it didn't seem to bother him the slightest bit. He didn't seem to regret it, and actually quite relished in it. The hiding within the shadows and the killings and the constant thirst for blood. And here, here he was actually sleeping. Here he was all dark hair and full eyebrows and flawless skin, seemingly at peace, in the midst of all the chaos that was his very existence. 

Jonathan reached out against his nature and rested his hand on the vampires chest. The fabric of his shirt crumpled slightly underneath it. Beyond that there was no pulse, but still, he was very clearly alive. 

The vampire didn't stir, much as Jonathan feared he would. His eyelids were still. He was sleeping though it seemed to be a deep sleep, almost like a coma. 

"Hello?"

Jonathan whispered, cringing at the sound of his own voice. He tried again a little louder. 

"Hello?"

He waited for what seemed like an hour before finally rising and pushing the slab back into place. Nothing. 

He traced his fingers over the golden plaque and wondered to himself what Dracula had been like before becoming a vampire. The same, most likely but...there was also the possibility that he'd been different. 

What had his job been? What were those dreams and aspirations he claimed to have had and still have? Had he had a family, a wife, a real wife? Kid's?

What kind of man had he been, in the end. How had he felt when his heart was still beating, when there had still blood flowing through his veins. Since he hadn't turned himself, who had turned him? Who had murdered him and gave him this accursed existence?

Jonathan didn't know why he cared but he did. There was just something about him that he couldn't ignore, and there was more to him surely. More to his character than just being well spoken, handsome, and charismatic. 

Every man, in Jonathans eye's, had two things: a dream and a fear. Dracula had been a man once. And even though he was a vampire his form was still that of man. He still had those things. Jonathan wanted to see them. He wanted to taste them on his tongue the same as he tasted blood. 

He was going insane.


	11. Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan and Dracula have a chat.

Draculas cape billowed out behind him as he walked. Coming to stand behind Jonathan he removed it with a single flick and draped it carefully over the chair back.

"You're quiet" he said.

"And?"

"Why, Johnny, I don't know about you but I had the most lovely rest this morning."

"I'm sure you did."

His sharp tone was met by quiet chuckling. Dracula didn't seem bothered by his attitude at all, in fact, he seemed to like it. It seemed to fuel him to poke at him even more.

"If you don't mind me asking, dearest, where did you stay? Surely you couldn't have been upstairs or you'd have shriveled to dust."

"Im not your dearest" Jonathan replied hotly. He lowered his head into his hands. "And-and I was down below. I-I don't even know how I got there I just-I just...did."

"Well, us vampires we have a sense for those kinds of things. Where to go and where _not_ to go."

Draculas finger tap, tap, tapped away on the table. A steady rythm that partially distracted him and caused his body to forcibly relax. Jonathan picked at the collar of his shirt, crumpling it, wrinkling the fabric in his state of confusion.

During the rest of his time down below his being alone had brought more and more of his memories back to him. There were still thing's he still couldn't remember, yes, but they were trivial thing's, small matters that meant virtually nothing to him and he knew that it wouldn't be long until most, if not all of the thing's he'd forgotten returned to him.

"My memories are coming back" he announced.

He partly announced it just because he wanted to hear it on his tongue and partly just to see Draculas reaction to it.

His reaction, although dissapointing, was to cock his head to the side and respond in kind, "Well Johnny with the ability's you've been shown to have, that's quite expected."

"That's it?"

Jonathan asked him the question and almost didn't like how it sounded coming out of his mouth. Almost like he was asking the man for more, for his approval or praise.

He wasn't. He _wasn't_. There was nothing he wanted from the man except a cure.

"Johnny" Dracula said murmuring. He was kneeling with his head resting on his forearms. "I don't know if I've ever said this but I absolutely adore the way the light of the flame's looks dancing across your skin."

Jonathan flushed red. Why did he say that? Why did he say these things? Were they meant to rile him up, make him feel some type of way? Jonathan changed the subject.

"England" he said. "You said I was the key to get to England and when I asked you, you said it was because of the people. W-what does that mean?"

Dracula smiled, teeth fully on display. For some reason it made Jonathan feel physically sick. He had no idea how many people those teeth had murdered and, to be quite honest, didn't think he wanted to know.

"I say the people because they give me insight."

"Insight to what?"

"Life, Johnny. Life. They give me insight to the way things work. Knowledge of things I don't know."

"I-I don't understand." Jonathan rubbed his temples. "How do dead people give you knowledge?"

"Well it's not them giving me the knowledge per say, but rather their blood. You see Johnny, when I drink someone's blood, I gain the knowledge of everything they know."

He settled himself on the table with one hand and moved the other animatedly about in the air as he explained himself.

"I gain their language, their smarts, their memories. Take yourself for instance. The first time I drank your blood I gained all the knowledge you had of England, and your skills as a lawyer, mind you. Your memories... vision's of family...Mina."

So that's how it works. Jonathan felt faint. So basically this God forsaken monster standing before him knew everything there was to know about him, all because he'd drank his blood. He had his knowledge, his memories, everything.

"The woman" he stammered. "The woman upstairs in the box. S-she said that when you're the Counts friend all languages are the same. That's what she meant? Thats what she meant by that, isn't it?"

Dracula shrugged. "Well I suppose so. She...she wasn't always so right in the head Johnny. Whatever she said, please do me a favor and don't take it to heart."

Jonathan wasn't listening to his reply. Not really. His mind was to clouded. To swarmed by the horror of what exactly he was going through.

"S-she said she tasted it. She tasted the language. And it tasted _fun_."

It tasted fun. Fun. Murdering people and taking their language and memories and knowledge was fun. It was a game. A sick twisted game that had no end. No end in sight.

"Well I'd have to agree, sometimes it does. It's invigorating."

Jonathan knew the answer to the question he asked next but he wanted to hear it from Dracula himself.

"Why do you kill people?"

"Why do you pick flower's?"

The response caught him off guard. Why did he pick flower's? Well, the answer was simple. They were beautiful and he wanted to keep them. He wanted to hold on to their beauty and admire them even if just for a while. He...he...he was the same.

"It's a full circle, yes?" Dracula moved behind him, momentarily blocking the light of the fire and casting him in darkness. It took Jonathan a moment to notice but he didn't have a shadow. There was no indication on the floor or the table that he was there and yet still he blocked the light.

"This is a nightmare" he whispered. "I'm in a nightmare."

"Yes" Dracula said slowly. He moved from in-between Jonathan and the fire and once again the area was bathed in orange and gold. "But you're with me."

//

Jonathan spent the remainder of his night in his room, in the blankets, crying. Or at least sobbing because it seemed that at the moment that was all he could do.

He tried to think of all the things he could possibly have done, what sordid mistake he'd made at some point in his life to deserve this horrible fate.

"I don't know" he said aloud. "I don't know. This doesn't make sense."

He closed his eyes and immediately opened them because Draculas face greeted him in the darkness. The candle on his nightstand was burning hot but also running low. He'd replace it soon enough. He was terrified of being completely in the dark.

He pulled his suitcase to him where it lay open on the other end of the bed. There was nothing of interest really. Paperwork for the property in England, clothes, another photograph of Mina.

He couldn't even bring himself to look at her face, no matter if it was only a picture. He was a disgrace. He'd sold his soul on the pretence of resting for a night in a seemingly undangerous place.

He wondered how it'd started. He'd pondered and questioned during his day's of madness and then it'd dawned on him. Dracula's rapid change in appearance. His claim that he couldn't come out in the daylight because "the sun did horrors to his skin", Jonathan's restlessness during the night, the ever growing feeling that somehow his energy was slowly being drained.

Dracula. Dracula had been feeding on him, feeding off his blood...every night.

"Mina" he whispered. "Mina."

Her purity called to him. It would cleanse him surely of the filth he'd gained. He'd be a man again, maybe even better.

Sitting there in the opressive silence he could almost hear Draculas voice, chastising him for his fantastical thoughts.

"Why, you must know Johnny that she can't hear you. You're much to far away."

"Shut up. Shut _up_." He hissed into the silence but there was no one there, his mind was hearing thing's. He brought his legs up to his chest and hugged them tight. He had to get out of here. Today, tomorrow or the day after. He had to get out. He had to get home. To Mina.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaannnnnddd....we're back :) Sorry for the long wait.

The instant he was sure that Dracula had retired for the day Jonathan got to work. 

This was his moment, his only chance. Soon, although he didnt know how soon, Dracula was planning on going to England and Jonathan had no idea whether or not the man was planning on taking him along or killing him, _again_ , and quite honestly he didn't want to experience either.

Moving quickly he heavily curtained his window with his blanket and sheets, effectively cancelling any sunlight that would no doubt attempt to shine its way inside. The room was shrouded in near total darkness. He lit his lantern with a stray match and put it on the nightstand. He didn't like the way the shadows flickered to and fro but he had bigger fish to fry and in the grand scheme of things that was nothing. 

On the opposite side of the room his dresser was sitting stationary. It had four large drawers and in the very bottom one, underneath a pile of inconspicuously folded clothes lay all the maps he'd found, neatly folded and tucked away for safe keeping. 

He lifted the clothes and carefully pulled them out, cautious of ripping the tattered and faded paper. He didn't even remember when he'd hidden them but he remembered that he did which was enough for now. 'When' didn't really matter to him anymore, only why. 

Ironically though, he didn't know why. The first map he'd found and fell with down below Dracula had layed out on the table without a care in the world like it didn't mean anything to him that Jonathan had found it. Would he even care about the other's? It wasn't like he'd asked Jonathan if he found anymore and he, of course, had been inside the man's room. This was his castle. Surely he had to know that there wasn't just one map but rather multiple maps showcasing the layout of the castle and...the deep woods surrounding it. 

But then again...maybe he didn't. 

Jonathan moved with unsteady fingers, and went about unraveling them one by one. The one's detailing the rooms inside of the castle he layed aside, but the one's that detailed the outside he kept in front of him. 

What he'd first arrived hed been concerned about what exactly was inside the castle but now he wasn't concerned with exploring the castle anymore, that idea was as dead as the monster resting in his coffin downstairs. All he wanted to do now was escape and go home to his wife and family who were surely waiting for him. 

//

The woods around the castle were deep, filled to bursting with thick, monstrous pines and elevated oaks, this Jonathan was well aware of, having eyed them for most of his journey up from down below. 

The castle was also resting on a mountain so he knew that his journey back would have to be one going down. This, he knew would prove to be difficult. Even though there was a wide trail, very easy on the eyes, if and when he did it, he'd be going on foot which would be indefinitely slower than a ride in a carriage. 

At first, he worried and pondered on the state of the weather, the frigid air and the deep, unmoving snow. But then he realized once again that he was dead and that his body no longer had it's proper functions so therefore the weather would not effect him. 

The biggest issue was not the weather though, but rather the sun. 

Jonathan knew it would be fatal for him to go out during the day as he'd die the instant the sun's rays chanced to fall upon his skin, but he couldn't do it at night either. He and Dracula were confined during the day but both he and Dracula were also wondering away during the night, the later probably getting up and moving even before Jonathan did.

Jonathan didn't know the strength of his powers, how strong he was or how fast but if Dracula was as old as Jonathan estimated him to be then surely if Jonathan ran he'd have little to no difficulty catching him then. 

So the solution was not that Jonathan had to be faster, but rather that he needed to know where exactly to hide because he'd never be fast enough. Thats where the maps came in. 

The paper crinkled as Jonathan smoothed it over with his hand squinting and turning it more towards the light in order to see the finer details hidden within. On the maps, the castle was always a part, being either in the center of it or at the top as a reference point on where to go. 

Jonathan knew that the trail led east so that where he put his focuse. The trail itself was no more a feature on ths map than the grass, so he had trouble figure out where exactly it was but using his brain, established that it started by going straight down, but at almost the halfway mark veered sideways in some sort of spiral. 

Jonathan wondered if that was intentional. He thought back to what Dracula had said when Jonathan had popped the whole, "what if I escape" question. 

_"Johnny you must understand that you're not very fast. I'll catch you, whether the time be long or short. You underestimate me, I can tell. Go ahead. Run. I'll unlock the entrance for you myself if you like."_

Jonathan shivered. Maybe the spiral was intentional. It would stop him, but it'd significantly slow him down at the least, enough for Dracula to easily catch up to him if he so desired. Luckily for Jonathan though he had absolutely no intention of following it. His plan was simple. Memorize the original path and then create his own.  
If Dracula was so sure of himself then he'd probably expect the brunnette to just run blindly down on a straight path. 

Jonathan wasn't fast, he wasn't fast at all, but one way or another he was getting down that mountain and if that meant changing his course and being swallowed by the forest then so be it. 

The mountain was alot more difficult tham he'd expected it to be but he'd known that going in. He traced his finger across the dark ink, swirling it around in a circle whenever he found anything of interest, a cave or a river or a cliff, anything that would be deep enough or secluded enough to hide in if he got caught or needed to rest. 

Checkpoints.

Knowing how slow he'd probably be traveling he didn't expect himself to make it all the way down in one night or even two. More than likely it would take him several and during the day he'd no doubt have to hide and shelter away from the sun. Dracula would too, so at least then he'd have a moment's rest knowing that he wasn't being persued. Dracula was fast but not invincible. 

Jonathan rubbed his temples. He was putting so much effort into this and didn't even know that when the time came he'd be able to do it. 

Who knew if he'd be able to even get past the door, let alone Dracula. If it was locked he'd have to find another way. If he was really going to go through with it he also needed to figure out how to get out early enough to get a head start. As far as he knew Dracula got up as soon as the sun went under the highest peak but he'd also been up that day he'd let Jonathan see the sun for the last time so that wasn't really something he could trust. 

For the next couple of hours he took his time pouring over every inch of every map, memorizing the exact same routine but eying it from different angles. He also traced out fall back plans in case something went wrong. Maybe he strayed off course accidentally or maybe one of the landmarks he'd memorized no longer existed.

It was definitely possible. With how old the castle seemed to be and how old the maps were it could be assumed that in that time the layout of the land had changed. 

He got up periodically to stretch and stare at the blankets and sheets where they lay heavy overtop the glass, fighting the suicidal urge to just rip it off and feel the warmth of the sun, even if he knew it would kill him. 

Soon enough he became aware that nightfall was right around the corner. He didn't know what had happened to him but somehow in his head his brain had re-wired itself to tell him when the sun was down and away. 

Dracula was coming. 

Jonathan gathered the maps and carefully tucked them back into the drawers underneath his clothes, making sure to mess them up a little so that it didn't look to suspicious. He changed into something clean and took his lantern in hand. 

The first couple of days he'd refused to come out and just stayed locked up in his room. Sometimes Dracula came for him and sometimes he didn't. But Jonathan found it unnerving to not have any idea about what exactly the man was doing so he made his prescence known every night even when he wasn't asked to. 

Based off of that information he'd decided very quickly that he'd rather be waiting for Dracula than have Dracula waiting for him. 


End file.
